CNN and other Atlanta-based properties of the Turner broadcasting business would get a new owner if merger talks reported Friday lead to a deal.
AT&T is in “advanced” talks to buy Turner parent Time Warner, with a deal possible “as early as this weekend,” The Wall Street Journal reported.
The Journal cited people familiar with the deal and said the talks could still fall through or be delayed. Bloomberg had previously reported talks between the two companies.
The Journal also reported that Apple had approached Time Warner several months ago but did get beyond preliminary talks.
AT&T’s aim would be to unite the Dallas-based giant’s wireless, broadband and satellite TV services – it acquired DirecTV last year – with Time Warner’s vast entertainment and media content.
In addition to CNN, TNT, TBS and other Turner units, New York-based Time Warner owns HBO and the Warner Bros. film and TV studio. It recently bought a 10 percent stake in streaming service Hulu.
Time Warner bought Turner Broadcasting — now known as simply Turner — in 1996.
Over the two decades since, the company’s strategic center of gravity has shifted toward New York. Current CEO John Martin and the chiefs of some of the networks based there, though the corporate address remains at CNN Center in Atlanta, where the cable news giant has studios and newsrooms. Turner also has production facilities and offices in Midtown.
Turner supplies about 37 percent of Time Warner revenue, according to regulatory filings.
A buyout by AT&T could raise new questions about the future structure of the company and of its Atlanta operations.
If it happens, the deal would continue a trend toward consolidation in which cable and telecom companies also own growing stockpiles of content to feed their distribution systems.
In 2011 cable TV and broadband giant Comcast bought NBC Universal, including NBC, MSNBC, Telemundo and other channels.
AT&T’s nearly $50 billion purchase of DirecTV, along with its own U-Verse service, made it the biggest player in pay-TV. But the reports said the company wants to prepare for the growth of streaming and so-called “skinny” bundles of channels. It is preparing to launch DirecTV Now, a streaming version of the satellite service.
Some analysts said in news reports Friday that a purchase of Time Warner, which rebuffed an offer by Fox in 2014, would be a big financial stretch for AT&T so soon after the DirecTV acquisition.
AT&T stock fell 3 percent Friday, while Time Warner stock jumped nearly 8 percent.
A deal would likely face stiff regulatory review that might force alterations or impose conditions.
“There’d be an enormous competitive concern about self-dealing, favoring their own properties to the detriment of competition,” Gene Kimmelman, a former antitrust official at the Justice Department and now the president of the consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge, told the Washington Post.
